


better than that

by scramjets



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5439347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scramjets/pseuds/scramjets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before James Gordon became 'James Gordon GCPD', he was briefly known to Oswald as 'Jamie from the coffee shop'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	better than that

**Author's Note:**

> I'll write a coffee shop AU, I said. It'll be fun, I said. Not externally beta'd.

Oswald knew they mocked him because the coffee shop was out of the way. He had to zigzag through the city blocks and slink past questionable alleyways. He had to cross a small footbridge that set him right beside a garnish sex establishment, where he had been accosted by a woman in almost nothing but a scarf that was more large pink flamingo than anything useful. Then there was the issue of walking back.

The coffee shop – when he finally made it – looked no different than the one set on the block down from Mooney’s. It didn’t have the trademarked logo at the front; the white and green Medusa that Oswald always glossed over because he didn’t so much care for coffee, but it was fundamentally the same in the mellow wood panelling and the small round tables, designed and placed so that people comfortably sat with their laptop and coffee for however long it took. He grappled with the business of it – the cost of a fancy coffee would have been ten dollars at the most, but to have the client malinger for upwards of an hour with no further outlay…

Oswald heaved a sigh, straightened the lapels of his coat and pushed open the door.

The smell was powerful: deep and nutty with an edge of bitterness, and it settled heavily in Oswald’s lungs. His mother would hate it, had always said that the smell scraped against her skin, crude and unrefined. He’d have to air his clothes if she found out, regardless of what smells did or did not linger. He’d have to sling his shirt and trousers out the window and wash out the dirt bedded into the fibres from the tracks.

A spasm of anger went through him and Oswald clenched his hands, because he knew – and he understood that Mooney’s brutes knew – that this entire trip was nothing but a way to put Oswald in his place. They were nervous of him, he decided, not entirely swayed by his charm or his assurances that he was pleased with what he was doing, playing the part of a glorified errands boy for Mooney; always hanging back to watch, to be something that she could coo over when there was nothing more to do – take him out of the worn, knitted sweaters that he had turned up in, and instructed on how to wear his clothes like armour so that he would stand a perfect match at her elbow in wait to be beckoned.

So, no. It hadn’t been a lie – he was pleased with where he was, learning what he needed to, taking in what he could – networking, to borrow and apply the term, as ridiculous as it sounded in the context.

The rush of early morning commute had come and gone, leaving only students and the straggling office worker behind. A pair of students, Oswald assumed, were huddled in a corner booth, poorly smothering their laughter as they watched something play on the laptop they shared. They didn’t feel the glare Oswald pass their way, heavy with his judgement. Some people had no idea how to act in public.

Oswald glanced up to the menu board. Three large cappuccinos, two extra shots, no chocolate on one of them; a regular sized latte, no sugar, skim milk. Oswald had glanced up and down the figure of the henchman who’d requested that particular one, more pot belly than muscle, and the shift in Thom’s stance told him he’d read the way Oswald had pinched his lips together, but Oswald had kept silent and offered a thin smile to placate him.

There were two other beverages, Oswald certain that they had made the orders as complicated on purpose in effort to muddle him up, give them an excuse to needle him more than they did. He didn’t even know how he was going to juggle six beverages back, but he’d do it – he was a resourceful person, they would see, even with the most inane tasks; in turns coddling and banking on him to fail.

“How can I help you,” the question, banal as it was, dragged Oswald’s attention from the menu board to the man behind the counter, and he paused. The six different, overly specific orders scattered from his mind to all the nooks and crannies of the store as he stared outright.

It wasn’t so much that the man was especially striking: average height, solidly built; his hair was in between brown and blond, tawny-coloured and growing out of a buzz-cut. Oswald had an eye for things, and the man was handsome in a safe way, but he’d attracted Oswald’s attention more on the fact he looked out of place in an apron and mildly patient for Oswald’s order.

Older, for a start, a good ten years on the other employees that flittered around the bench, squeezing past with a ‘scuse, Jamie’, or a hip-nudge that went seemingly absorbed where the same thing would have at least upset Oswald’s balance, should he have not been expecting it. And he looked tired. Tired in a deeper, more encompassing way than a few lost nights. Oswald recognised that look from when he was younger, when his mother had smuggled them out of the mess of Eastern Europe with nothing but a handful of forged documents and prayers.

The man waited, brow raised in question while he hovered a hand over the screen of his register.

“Oh. Yes,” Oswald said, “excuse me. I was— I was lost in my own world for a minute, you know how it is.”

“Let me be the one to formally welcome you back,” the man said, not mean, but distinctively dry. “What were you after?”

Oswald looked back up to the board, a little helpless in the wake of his pause, the suggestion of heat creeping up the buttoned collar of his shirt.

Oswald’s attention caught on the cappuccinos, the word sparking chain reaction, and he listed the order of: “Three large cappuccinos, two extra shots, no chocolate on one of them; a regular sized latte, no sugar, skim milk; a large cold dirty chai, and a piccolo.”

Jamie had started to tap the register screen, only he had quickly got lost in the thread of words, the furrowed brow of his concentration rapidly turning to alarm as Oswald continued.

“Wait—“ Jamie said, “hold up, I—“ and once Oswald was done, he stared at the screen before looking up to say, “Three large cappuccinos, two with extra shots and one of those two with no chocolate on the foam.”

“Yes,” Oswald said, “that’s correct.”

A beat before Jamie said, half abashed and half annoyed, “I missed the rest.”

Occasionally, the lady who served Oswald at the local supermarket dropped and fumbled his items. There had been a few times where she had to call for a price check, her voice static-y and pitched through the overhead intercom system. Whenever his mother accompanied him, she’d switch to her mother tongue and curse about how the woman was buying time to enjoy Oswald’s company, as if she could ever afford it, and Oswald would fix his attention on the advertising that hung on the wall opposite, whatever it was, and he’d read it over and over, jaw set, smiling tightly in response to any apologies.

“I have no idea why we shop there, still,” his mother had said, last time they had went. “That woman cannot even pack the bags right. Look at it, all mixed up,” and she shook bag in emphasis while he said, “Mom,” in his clearest east American accent, “it’s the closest store.”

“We have car. You can drive.”

“I’m not driving if I don’t have to.”

A small flare of annoyance went through him, but it dulled quickly, and he said, enunciated because Oswald never liked being asked to repeat himself: “A regular latte with no sugar and with skim milk,” a part of him still could not believe he was doing this, ordering coffee for _Mooney_. “And a large cold dirty chai, and a piccolo.”

The corner of Jamie’s mouth had tightened, but he keyed in the rest of the order without comment, grabbed a set of empty cups to scrawl on the sides and passed them along to the person behind the hulking coffee machine.

“Name?” Jamie said, pen poised on the last cup.

“Oswald Cobblepot.”

Jamie scratched it across the surface and turned back to his register to tell him the price. Oswald pocketed the change when he received it and carefully tucked the receipt away. Mooney was shrewd. She had given him the cash taken from a small, locked container, all the coins sectioned by the numerical value.

“Bring back the receipt, Oswald,” she’d told him, “don’t take too long now.”

“Oh, no, Miss Mooney,” Oswald had said, smiling. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

There were two orders before his, but it wasn’t long before the barista set everything in two specially made carry bags, both with the shop logo stamped on the front.

She shuffled the cups around and squinted at one. “Jamie,” she said, “what does this even say?”

Jamie leaned across to peer over her shoulder and read, “Oswald Cobblepot.”

The barista squinted at it again. “Oswald?”

“That would be me,” Oswald said, annoyed. But this had been a constant in his childhood – the inability to correctly spell or pronounce his name that eventually graduated into harassment. He’d learned to wear it, learned to angle his jaw when someone forced _Kupelput_ into Cobblepot, and didn’t blink when the loftiness of _Oswald_ was dragged into something mocking.

“Vowels exist for a reason. Sorry,” the barista said to Oswald, sliding the bags across the small receiving table. “He’s ex-army—“

“ _Army_ ,” Jamie repeated.

“I’m just happy he didn’t Oscar Mike Delta your entire name,” she said as Oswald slowly collected the bags, taking care the cups sat the correct way. He didn’t doubt that Mooney’s brutes would sent him back out if anything spilled.

“Oscar Mike Delta,” Jamie said, “Jesus Christ.”

When Oswald checked the cup later, long out of sight of the café but before the foot bridge by the sex shop, it read: OSWLD CBBLPT.

-

“What did you think,” Mooney said.

She regarded him from below the length of her lashes, chin angled, before she took the time to adjust herself: the spilt of her skirt widening to accommodate the fold of one long leg over the opposite knee, the revealed skin on the meat of her thigh a shade lighter than her calf. Oswald stared resolutely at her face and the smile he wore made his cheeks ache. His mother would have hated Mooney.

“What did you think, hmm?” Mooney asked, the steel of her voice softening a beat later to continue: “You didn’t think that we spent _all_ our time drawing up plans, did you?”

“Excuse my petulance, Ms. Mooney,” Oswald said, “I was just thinking, there is that place nearby that serves much of the same thing. There would be no need to—to waste time in sending me all across town for—“

Mooney held up a hand and curled her fingers until only the index was raised. Oswald glanced to the sharp point of it and felt a muscle slide in his jaw. She tutted him, and, God, just wait until he could do the same down to her.

“Same request as last time, Oswald. Do you remember?”

Oswald unclenched his hands where he held them crossed behind his back. His shoulders loosened in response, body sagging forward until he straightened. “Yes, I do, Ms. Mooney.”

-

“The same as last time,” Oswald said.

Jamie stared back, his expression impassive. There was a scar that sat above Jamie’s eyebrow, Oswald noticed. Something shallow and neat looking, like he had been nicked there by a knife, perhaps. Oswald set the thought aside exhaled hard through his nose when Jamie didn’t respond.

He repeated: “The time I was here last, the same thing.”

There was a beat before Jamie said, “I’m here five days a week for ten hours. I take dozens of orders in a single hour for a variety of things. There is no way in hell I’m going to remember whatever it was you ordered.”

Oswald stared outright. He’d learned to tamp down his instinctive anger when it came to navigating Mooney’s, but he was not going to put up with it by some man who had made his purpose in life to serve people coffee. _Coffee_.

“Jamie!” A woman – Oswald recognised her as being the same one from the previous visit, petite with light brown skin and short bobbed hair.

“Seriously?” she said as she hip-nudged him from the register, pointedly oblivious to the look he gave her. She had already started typing on the screen, the glare of it reflecting on the lens of her glasses which kept slipping down the bridge of her nose.

“Sooo, three large cuppas, extra shots on two, no chocolate on one of the said two…—“

“Regular latte?” Jamie offered when she trailed off.

He had glanced to Oswald as he spoke, the question on his face softening the bulk of Oswald’s irritation until it barely registered in the background of his thoughts.

“Regular latte, no sugar,” Oswald said.

The barista allowed Jamie to step back in place to settle payment once they had figured out the rest, pausing only duck something murmured by Jamie’s ear. Oswald wondered what it was to have Jamie’s expression tighten at the corners like it did, before he gave a single nod and tallied the price. He handed the change back, along with the receipt, and took a set of cups aside, scrawling down the orders and passing them along.

“You don’t make those then,” Oswald said as the barista sorted them out, the machine clicking and grinding in the background; the smell of beans pervasive and wafting.

Jamie nodded to the barista, mostly hidden from Oswald’s sight. “She’s still teaching me.”

“Yeah,” she called out, over the hiss of steam. She shifted to direct a grin to Oswald and up to Jamie. “He really sucks,” she said, fond. “I have no idea what he’s doing here. But we’re working on it.”

Jamie’s response was a dry, “Thanks, Lilah.”

The six cups were set in another two bags ten minutes later, and Oswald moved to grab them only to pause. _OSWALD_ stared back at him, neatly scrawled across the body of one. He glanced to Jamie, who had stepped from behind the counter to address the handful of tables with empty mugs and plates. His back was turned towards him and Oswald tracked the length of his body – the relative broadness of his shoulders that tapered only slightly where the leather straps of his apron were tied and knotted and rested snug in the dip of his spine. Oswald inhaled a breath between his teeth and turned his attention away, and he grabbed the bags and quickly left the store.

-

Oswald tried and failed to smother the thrill of nerves, hands trembling slightly as he finished up the last set of heels that Mooney had tasked him with cleaning. They were mostly glossy leather, the heel long, silver and tapered, and the toe caps tidy rows of black sequin. Mooney could take someone’s eye out, if the occasion called for it, and Oswald tested the weight of one in his hand where the curve of the sole fit snug against his palm. People tended to underestimate the things beneath them, and Oswald smiled, permitted himself a laugh at his own joke.

But the point of their cleanliness would be a meeting with the head of the Russian mob, and Oswald was almost certain they were in collusion. The meeting would confirm it – something organised to discuss tariffs or some such – and he’d planned to tuck the information aside for a rainy day.

Oswald ran the tip of his finger against the shiny smooth surface of the shoe, his face reflected back at him, bowed out where the leather curved around the heel.

“Aren’t they beautiful?”

Oswald didn’t startle. It was naïve to think he was ever truly alone while at Mooney’s. He stood and turned, the shoe propped between his hands and a smile on his face. He felt the corners of it dig into his cheeks, but he held it in place.

“Very much so, Ms. Mooney. You have excellent taste.”

Mooney hummed as she strode towards him, stopping just outside of his space. The smell of her perfume came with her, something rich and dark that settled on the back of Oswald’s tongue, lingering. His smile held.

She stood shorter than him by a handspan without heels, but he would have never known it if not for now.

Mooney tilted her chin and said: “Put it on.”

Oswald dropped to a crouch fast enough to have his knees pop in protest, and he felt the tips of Mooney’s fingers through the thick material of his jacket, balancing as she lifted a foot. The shoe slipped on, a beat passing, Oswald mutely admiring the way the black framed her skin before she moved. The other shoe went on accordingly and Oswald straightened. They stood even, now.

“Well,” Mooney withdrew with a flicker of her fingers, the light overhead catching the sparkle in her nail polish. “Shall we?”

The party arrived half an hour later – four men, all Russian: Nicolai in a pressed suit, the cuffs of which sat short at the wrists, and the bodyguards in black sport trousers, trainers and white shirts.

Oswald measured them up from where he stood, angled out of sight but with the full sweeping view of the room. He ignored how Butch took a place by Mooney’s side, his large hands folded behind his back. A low murmur of greetings were exchanged, and Oswald watched, fascinated, as Nicolai allowed his lips to linger against the downward slant of Mooney’s cheek, a hint of shadow from his lowered lashes visible in spite of the distance.

“Oswald, darling?”

Oswald blinked rapidly, confused as he stepped forward. “Yes, Ms. Mooney?”

Mooney sat, and she hooked an elbow over the back of her chair and tilted a smile up to him – something sharp and knowing tucked in the corner of it.

“It’s a bit early for a drink,” she said and gestured. “The boys and I would appreciate a coffee.”

Something heavy dropped into the pit of Oswald’s stomach, and he felt it turn over – the sensation dragging goosebumps up along his spine and down his arms, and he clenched his hands in an effort not to let anything show on his face.

Oswald cast for something – anything – to say.

“I—“ His attention slid to Butch, the corner of his mouth pulled up, tucked against the thick curve of his cheek.

It was an effort to unfist his hands.

“Surely,” Oswald said, aiming for nonchalant. “I would be of more use here.”

Mooney didn’t shift her gaze, her expression mild before she turned back to her party. “Gentlemen? Coffee?”

“Please,” Nicolai said, his thick accent rumbling through the single word. It sounded like laughter.

Oswald’s smile was tight on his face, and he inclined his head and said, “Of course. Allow me,” before he tallied up their orders and stalked out of the venue.

-

The coffee shop had been designed to allow light to filter through, and, depending on the time of day, it would puddle on the tables and along the floor, or dapple across the counter and spill over the edges in sheets.

Jamie and Lilah both stood behind the register, the late morning sun softening their profiles as they studied a single piece of paper that Lilah held between them. Oswald saw Jamie look up the moment his shadow fell across the door, and he stepped in and strode up to the register.

“Rough day at work?” Jamie asked, and Oswald pursed his mouth, flicked his attention up and down, gauging where the question came from before he said: “You could say that,” then, “I have a large order. You may have to prepare yourself.”

Jamie lifted his brow, and he passed the document to Lilah who turned and pinned it on the cork board behind them, already packed with loose scraps of paper and photographs. Somebody had drawn a thick black heart around a snapshot of an island, the word DREAM written underneath.

“Ready whenever you are,” Jamie said, easily.

Oswald opened his mouth and shut it, staring for a moment before he rattled out the order. It was eleven cups of excessively fancy coffee this time, and Jamie stared at his screen once he was done keying it all in, and then up to Oswald’s face with a crease in his brow and he asked, “How the hell did you manage to remember that.”

The question startled the truth out of Oswald, made him say, “I work in a bar,” the upward lilt on the final word making it almost a question in response.

Jamie gave him a considering look, one that made Oswald shift where he stood, aware of the weight of it until Jamie stated the price. Oswald held out his hand after he had rung it through, but was still surprised when Jamie pressed the paper receipt into the cup of his palm and counted out the loose coins.

Jamie’s hand was very warm, Oswald realised, eyes darting from their hands to Jamie’s face, which was held in concentration. Far too much for what the task required. Oswald drew a shaky breath and shoved everything on his coat pocket, aware of how everything felt against his skin from the imprint of Jamie’s fingers against his palm to the way one shoe was tied tighter than the other on his feet.

Oswald moved aside, mouth tight as he listened with half an ear while Lilah talked to Jamie. The cadence of her voice pleasant over rough grate of the coffee grinder and the occasional hiss of steam.

“Oswald!!”

Oswald dragged set his attention to where Lilah peered from the other side of the espresso machine, hair pushed out of her face with a dark green Alice band, curlier than Oswald remembered. She tilted her head pointedly, succeeding to only baffle him, and it must have been obvious on his face because Lilah rolled her eyes.

The sound of the cash register snapping shut and the rattle of loose deterred Lilah from an explanation, but the significant looks didn’t stop until she was setting the drinks into their bags. There were three this time, and she glanced at them, and across to Oswald, and finally to Jamie, who was adding more cups to the tower between the register and espresso machine.

“Hey, Jay?” she asked, and continued when Jamie hummed to show he was listening. “When’s your break? Did you want to take it now?”

“Huh?”

Lilah said, “I can hold the fort.”

“Why?” Jamie asked.

“Oswald has three bags today—“

Oswald had been leaning against one of the round tables, the lip of it digging against his hip. He jerked up when what Lilah was proposing became clear, all at once uncomfortable and said, his hands up and palms open, “Oh, no, that’s—that’s fine. I’m sure I can manage. Truly. I can take a cab back if need be.”

But Jamie had already wandered across to Lilah’s side of the bench, a frown on his face that deepened at the corner when he looked back up to Oswald.

“Where are you headed?”

“Just—just down the road,” before he clarified. “Theatre district.”

“ _Theatre_ district?” Lilah said, “oh God, Oswald. If that’s ‘down the road’ for you, what do you classify a long walk? No,” she said, “Jamie, here,” she handed him two of the bags, mindful of the contents and completely ignoring Oswald.

“Seriously, don’t worry,” she said to him, and then to Jamie: “I can hold the fort.”

A minute later found Oswald with the remaining bag of coffee and Jamie’s solid presence at his side as they headed towards the Theatre district. The walk was long and short at once, both pleasant and distractingly uncomfortable in its silence. Even the woman at the sex shop, the one who had taken it upon her shoulders to coo at Oswald every time he walked past didn’t pay them any mind, though, if she had…—if she _had_ cooed at him. At them – Oswald simply did not notice.

“There were three Starbucks,” Jamie said, once they stood at the front of Mooney’s club.

He was studying at the signage when Oswald glanced at him, the furrow in his brow obvious in his profile before he turned to regard Oswald.

“Three. On the way here. And you go all the way for—“ Jamie lifted the bags he held in lieu of speaking.

Being reminded turned in Oswald’s stomach, and he said, savage: “What concern is it to you,” and then, and mostly because he didn’t ask to be put into the situation and for the piteousness of his job that he stood for only for the opportunities it presented to him, Oswald said: “Thank you. You didn’t have to, but thank you all the same. You may go now.”

The look Jamie gave him this time was mild, but he didn’t press – simply set the bags on the ground with care and turned away.

The spark of anger had cooled by the time Jamie’s back had been presented to him, something shameful and cold taking its place in the hollow of Oswald’s stomach. He drew a breath between his teeth and shouldered the door of Mooney’s open, the weight unpleasant and welcome as he transferred the drinks inside to find that the Russians had already left and the bar was empty.

-

The knot of the bowtie pressed crooked against the jut of his Adam’s apple and his fingers itched to redo it, but he stood, hands linked in front of him with a wan smile on his face as the few remaining patrons mingled in the fading chords of the night’s live music. A muted applause went up, and the woman on stage pressed a kiss to her hand and waved to crowd before she swept off.

Butch came to him not long after and Oswald straightened his spine and set his shoulders. Butch always hid his amusement badly. He went out of his way to. Sometimes he’d start at Oswald’s shoes and drag his smile up until he caught Oswald’s eyes. Other times it was less obvious: confusion in his voice, surprise that he was there. Oswald filed away each incident, welcomed them all in a way, because he would keep Butch after everything was said and done, and pay him back in turn.

But tonight it was business, Butch instructing him of a patron who’d drunk himself half to death at the bar and who was now Oswald’s responsibility.

Oswald knew who Butch talked about – had seen him enter when the place opened for the night, and had planted himself into a stool for the remainder of it.

“Sir,” Oswald said at the man’s shoulder. He didn’t even try for patience; doubtful the drunk would notice or care. They never did, really. “I’m afraid you’ve had enough now; we’re about to close for the night. I can call up a taxi service, if you would like.”

Oswald hadn’t seen the man’s face beyond the slant of his cheek, always turned away. He’d been busy playing his part in the smooth running of the club, and so it was a surprise when the man lifted his head from the cradle of his arms and looked at him. The gaze was muzzy but direct in spite of the obvious glaze of alcohol. A fair amount, Oswald supposed as he sifted back through his night where Jamie’s broad, hunched shoulders had been a mainstay, tucked into the dark grey of his suit jacket.

Oswald smiled, more genuine than he expected, at the way Jamie squinted at him, looking like he was staring into the sun than at Oswald. And he found he liked that look – the pinch at Jamie’s eyes paired with the upward tilt of his head.

The drunken slant of Jamie’s body he could have done without, but Oswald took humour in it and he pressed the flat of his hand against the solid heat of Jamie’s back and said again, “I can arrange a taxi service for you, if you feel it necessary in your—…” a pause. “State. I can even arrange for it to be on a tab, if you prefer. I know where you work,” he let Jamie read the joke on his face. “I can collect when you’re hmm—” he dragged out the sound, muddled in with a laugh. “When you’re more up to snuff.”

The furrow in Jamie’s brow deepened, and the good humour that tempered Oswald turned suddenly, and he tipped his head back to the gilt ceiling overhead and sighed.

“I think I had a little much to drink,” Jamie said.

Oswald turned his attention back to Jamie. He didn’t bother to hide the way his jaw was set, or the pinch of his mouth, barely checked, and he tried not to soften at the helpless look Jamie gave him, like he had no idea why his legs couldn’t bare his weight, or that he didn’t possess the coordination to take leave of his seat in a way that wouldn’t see him in a heap on the floor.

A presence at his elbow saw one of the other attendants, hands tucked away in white cotton gloves, say: “Excuse me. Mr. Cobblepot? —if you were requiring assistance—“

Oswald didn’t bother to address the attendant further than to snap, “You may go.”

The attendant extracted himself thereafter.

Oswald hesitated and set his hand against Jamie’s back once more. He— didn’t touch people often, less so casually, as such. Closeness framed by intimidation made sense. It was what he was familiar with – the twist of delight in his gut at the discomfort he made people feel was normal. But Jamie didn’t hunch at the weight of his hand, didn’t shy away from it; he allowed it to sit, the slight stiffness of his body receding until it left in a visible slump of Jamie’s shoulders, as if he had allowed the weight to pass onto Oswald, who – in turn – felt it acutely against his sternum, making it difficult for him to breathe.

“Mr.” Oswald cast through what he knew of Jamie and found he had no other name. “Jamie—“

“That’s not my name, you know,” Jamie said, “not really.”

Oswald stared Jamie’s profile as he waited for him to continue, his hand still pressed firm against Jamie’s back. He felt Jamie inhale, the loose parts of him draw together until he deemed himself in a state enough to slide off the barstool and onto his feet, staring at them like he was expecting betrayal at any moment.

It was an odd thing to want to help, but Oswald found himself starting with, “Do you need—“ before Jamie waved the question away, looking distinctly off-colour while he did it.

Oswald watched, mouth pinched, as Jamie slung a couple of notes onto the bar top, the surface of it sticky with alcohol and stamped with fingerprints, and move for the door, the only hint of his inebriation present in the exact care he took in walking.

“Take care,” Oswald called out, surprising himself by doing so and in the way it sounded – more bitter than expected, and he continued: “Try not to get hit by a car and die.” And then he said, louder, as Jamie staggered through the door and out onto the street. “I don’t want that responsibility on my shoulders.”

-

It was a Saturday. Saturdays usually started off with a shared breakfast with his mother followed by mass, which he duly accompanied her to, duly sat through, and duly recited prayers to like the good son he was. He’d leave her after with her prayer group, a cluster of women her age who spoke the same language and who understood her eccentrics because they were all very much the same.

They would do the weekly groceries later, and she would fill him in on the gossip: whose daughter possessed the loosest morals, and whose sons couldn’t hold a steady job.

One of the babushkas in her group had only recently welcomed another grandbaby, which had, in turn, inspired his mother to ask if he was seeing any special ladies. The answer a very firm and self-depreciating _no._ The moment of self-pity short lived by the accusation that he was never going to marry and give her grandchildren if he was so tied up with work. Then she had cried, and Oswald had been alarmed to find himself saying that, yes, he would give her grandchildren one day. Just not today.

In all, an absurd experience that had left the air brittle in the same way it did after arguments. And Oswald hoped that she had gotten over the excitement of babies because he wasn’t in the habit of making promises he couldn’t keep, especially to her. It was almost easier, he had thought, to be accused of dallying with painted ladies.

But his mother would be occupied for a few hours yet, and so Oswald crossed the few short blocks to the coffee shop. He wasn’t entirely sure if Jamie would be working, but the gamble paid off, Oswald catching snatches of Jamie as he took in orders and sent them across to the two other employees behind the espresso machine. The line was short, and it didn’t take long until Oswald stood at the front of it, smiling as Jamie looked at him across the counter, deep shadows beneath his eyes paired with the air of one deeply ruffled, despite appearing outwardly presentable.

It was oddly endearing, and so Oswald said, as bright as he could muster, “Good morning, Jamie. My, you’re looking _well_.”

The words, when they came, sounded like they were dug out of the dirt and presented to him in all its crudeness; the individual letters and the usual roundness of Jamie’s accent chipped and dusty when he said, “How can I help you.”

“How can you help me indeed,” Oswald repeated just as brightly, if not more so, delighting in how clear he sounded against Jamie’s roughness. “Have you been like this all morning?”

Jamie ignored he response and transferred his attention to the register. His eyes were visibly bloodshot, Oswald saw, and there was a deep crease at the centre of his brow that, for a second, Oswald wanted to press out with his fingers.

He had almost lifted a hand to do so when Jamie said, “If you’re not going to give me an answer, I’m going to assume the usual.”

“Oh, no,” Oswald told him, and Jamie paused, flicking his eyes up to Oswald when the silence stretched on for longer than a beat.

“An Americano,” Oswald said, finally. “For myself,” and he paid, received his change in his cupped palm and when he checked the size of the cup later, he read: OSW.

Jamie had also underlined it, the short line like a tick of approval slanted beneath his name, and Oswald found it warmed him far more than the coffee did.

-

Oswald found Jamie on a barstool of Mooney’s nearly two weeks and half a dozen coffee errands later. He had seen all iterations of his name in shorthand by then, including one slow day where Jamie had written it in the Nato alphabet to Lilah’s distress. She’d tossed Oswald exaggerated sad eyes while Jamie wrote, needled Jamie with the fact that no one else was waiting, and Oswald found that he hadn’t been particularly annoyed by it either – or at least through the buffer that Jamie provided, brow folded in concentration as he wrote, his lips pinched together.

Jamie wore the same suit – that dark blue-grey – and now that Oswald looked, he saw that it sat a little small on him. He’d missed it the first time, but with Jamie’s back presented to him, straight in the stool he sat upon, Oswald saw there was snugness to the shoulders of the suit, and the realisation sparked off a thought the way flint sparked fire, catching first on the way the fabric pulled, making Oswald wonder if the suit was old. Making Oswald wonder if Jamie had purchased it off the rack a handful of years ago when it had fit. And perhaps he had returned from serving and slid into the jacket and paused at the way it sat, uncomfortable and tight over the bulk of muscles that hadn’t been there before.

The thought burned on – it traced the lines of the jacket, down the trim line of his waist and up the line of his back. And Oswald considered what it would be like to press his thumb against the knob of Jamie’s spine, right where it sat behind the cut of the collar, exposed only when Jamie dipped his head forward.

He recalled the piano lessons of his youth; the stretch of scales up and down the keys, fingers over thumbs. He imagined he’d do the same down the keys of Jamie’s spine, each rise and hollow, skin warm against his fingers, until he reached the waist of Jamie’s trousers where the weight of the moment would sink in the same way the final heavy note of music did, right into marrow.

Jamie straightened when the bar tender slid him another shot, the liquid golden in the glass, and Oswald watched as Jamie tipped it down his throat, the motion smooth, smooth—save for the bump of his throat that rolled as he swallowed—

Oswald felt the cage of his ribs expand as he inhaled, and he flicked his attention aside to where a group of young women were huddled around a table dressed in 1940s finery, the pleasing effect of it ruined by the small notes of anachronism: a cell phone, purple hair; a pair of glasses, far too modern to count.

He didn’t address Jamie until the stage was empty, the booths bare and until the lingering attendants shot looks to the bass clef of Jamie’s spine, knowing they could finally leave when he did. Oswald dismissed them for the night, cleared up the last of what was required before he finally stepped up behind Jamie and soothed a hand against his back; curious in the way the muscles clenched before they loosened when Oswald shifted into Jamie’s sightlines.

The last person Oswald had touched had been left bruised and bleeding and he had shrunk away when Oswald had approached. The beat of excitement through him now was a similar echo, differently tuned but clear, and he smiled and said, “Truly, I think you’ve had enough now, Jamie. Perhaps it’s best to home if you want to be respectable for work tomorrow. I can’t imagine that working through a hangover is something you’d be so eager to repeat.”

He heard the click of Jamie’s throat when he swallowed, followed by a similar sound when he set the shot glass on the bar top. Oswald’d have to wash it later, clean over the circle of condensation before it stained the surface, and he made a mental note that went forgotten a breath later, when Jamie slid out of the stool. It hadn’t been something that Oswald anticipated to have a suggestion followed so easily and without question, trusted for what it was; something that he didn’t have to fight for, and it trilled low in Oswald’s stomach, overturned the darker feelings that had shadowed the last few days where his loyalty had been tested in the form of repeated inane tasks.

Oswald tested his welcome in keeping his hand at the low curve of Jamie’s back, and he even forgave the way Jamie staggered when his shoe caught on a small stair. Jamie hissed a curse between his teeth, and he looked so entirely put off by it that it startled a laugh from Oswald, free hand coming to press against the firmness of Jamie’s chest to steady him.

“There,” Oswald said, breathless at the solid feel of Jamie between his hands, like he was the only person who could wield the control. “I never knew you were so clumsy.”

“I’m not,” Jamie sounded confused and a little unsteady. “I’m really not.”

Oswald wouldn’t kill him, if things came down to it. The realisation came in that instant, clear and fully formed in the empty street. Oswald tilted his head to glance to the sky, where it looked half lit from all the city lights below, and he thought that if the coffee shop and Mooney’s bar was going to be the new normal, then Jamie would have to know his plans. And Jamie would have to know that he would keep him safe and out of harm’s way while Oswald did what he had to do.

A high wail of a police siren turned Jamie’s attention away just as Oswald was about to speak, and so he held his words behind his teeth until he could have Jamie’s focus back; patient as he tracked the exposed arch of Jamie’s neck in the meantime, the rise and shadowed falls of the tendons that eventually led to the dark hollow of Jamie’s throat. Oswald wondered how thin the skin was there, how it would be to press his thumb into the cradle of it and feel the thrum of Jamie’s heart.

“I’ve joined,” Jamie said. He turned back when Oswald hummed in idle question, the red of Mooney’s bar spilling across his face, the expression something that Oswald had trouble discerning in the off light.

“The police academy,” he clarified.

There had been an incident, branded in Oswald’s memory from his youth. He must have been four or five, the hazy recollection presenting him bundled up in a thick jacket, puffs of air visible as he breathed. It had been cloudy that day, the sunlight feeble, but Oswald had felt hot with his hand tight in his mother’s grip, forced to keep up with her step.

She had been distracted. Oswald old enough to understand the looks she kept throwing over her shoulder and the way she pressed her scarf over her lower face, how she tugged at his hand and urged him along, the panic slipping through the soft murmur of her words and spiking them.

He wanted to ask what was wrong, and had started, the pitch of his voice like glass in the muted grey that enclosed them, and she had shushed him almost immediately and swept them in an alley, crushed him against the brick there, hand cradling his head as her body hid his entirely.

Oswald remembered the rabbiting of her heart against his ear and the way she had shrunk against the concrete as the sound of people walking grew… and continued past where they hid; and her fear had leeched into his body, the beat of his heart echoing hers, hands aching with the force of his grip in the fold of her clothes and how he had cried and refused to remove them, frozen in his terror, face wet with tears.

He felt an echo of that now: sharp and cold and threatening to break if he so much as moved. And Jamie was speaking, voice slurred and warmed by alcohol in a world’s difference to his mother’s which had been brittle in her fear.

The juxtaposition hurt Oswald’s head and he snapped for Jamie to stop talking.

Oswald took a breath, and then another, the thin Gotham air burning along his sinuses. His hands were cold and he rubbed them together, attention skating over Jamie’s confused face to land across the street, where a street lamp had cut out, tall and silent in the gathered dark.

Jamie possessed the bearings of a good officer – Oswald allowed himself to see this; let the idea of it sit half-formed in his head, the blue of the GCPD uniform matching the colour of Jamie’s eyes, and Oswald turned the thought over, poured all his black into the frame so they stood side-by-side. A shadow to Jamie’s brightness.

“A police officer,” Oswald said, “well, I would say it makes sense. You serving the country, serving the city is almost a natural extension,” he paused. “I think it would chip away at your soul. Serving Gotham.”

“Maybe,” Jamie said, slow.

Oswald pinched his lips together. It was difficult enough that Jamie didn’t have much an eye for subtly, and it was worse when he was drunk. Jamie didn’t understand at all, didn’t catch the undercurrent of Oswald’s words or the way he held his face, and so Oswald threw it in the wind and said: “But you understand, they’re so corrupt these days. No better than the crime lords, with the fortunate circumstance of being sanctioned by the mayor. Just a warning,” and he added. “From a friend.”

Instinct told him to play it off like a quip, but his skin was too tight, hands clenched, and he glanced to Jamie after a drawn moment, silent where they stood on the strip and drenched in the red of Mooney’s bar lights. Jamie looked back, the sharp surprising focus of it pinning Oswald in place.

The smile Oswald managed was thin and it felt odd. “I will miss you at the coffee shop,” He said, finally.

He had inclined himself towards Jamie when he had spoken where he caught the edge of Jamie’s warmth, and Oswald stepped into the circle of it without thought and tilted his head by scant degrees to catch the familiar cool blue of Jamie’s eyes—only they slid hot over the planes of Oswald’s face and drew heat to the surface of his skin, and whatever Oswald was going to say scattered as he froze a second time; his nerves stitched tight in a different way, one that settled deep in his gut in a pleasant, pulsing ache.

Jamie’s attention had settled to Oswald’s mouth, and Oswald licked his lips only half aware that he was doing it; just the sweep of his tongue and the bite of his teeth over the curve.

The moment broke when Jamie looked away, the sharp draw of his breath a perfect cover to the disappointment that welled in Oswald’s chest. He had _wanted_. For a second he had wanted, the challenge of _both,_ of _all_ presented to him.

Oswald felt disorientated in the aftermath, and he blinked at Jamie who had stepped away.

Oswald’s attention darted across the pinched lines of Jamie’s face, the set of his jaw and the way he hunched his shoulders, cradling himself as if he was the one with something to break. He wanted to sneer, wanted to scoff at Jamie’s hesitance, wanted to ask if he already blamed the alcohol – but he wanted it back most of all.

“Well,” Oswald said, the blend of everything he felt drawing his words bitter. “Goodbye. If that is what you came for.”

And Jamie looked up, the flash of surprise quickly turning to something even, if troubled.

“It was,” he said. A breath before, “I’ll see you around.”

And Oswald said, “I should think you will.”

And that was that.

-

The alleyway behind Mooney’s was wide, but cluttered. The fire escape was bolted beside the door, and trash cans lined the walls further up. The concrete had been laid out unevenly, one side half a step up from the other and rain collected in the narrow ditch it created, the slight slant directing it towards the street where it would drain. It was useful. It made cleaning up easy.

Raoul had blood on his teeth, turned pink from spit and rain. Oswald copied the expression, the difference in the way his lips turned up at the corners, delighted, before flexed his grip on the handle of the bat and brought it back up—

“Take it easy, Penguin,” Zeb said, and the name sent a ripple of anger through Oswald, hand spasming on the bat, tightening around the plastic of his umbrella, shoulders stiffening as he reeled back to spat out: “You know I don’t like to be called that.”

“Oh,” Zeb said, unaffected. “Scary.”

The clip of shoes registered only a second before the owner spoke, voice steady over the rough sound of Raoul’s breathing and patter of rain against the umbrella lofted over Oswald’s head; and it was strange how so monumental a thing was allowed to transgress against the backdrop of the alley—

“How’s everybody doing?” Jamie said.

Shame heaved through Oswald, hand loose on the aluminium handle of the bat as he spun on his heel to face him. The surprise on Jamie’s face was quickly shuttered where Oswald’s was still outright, mouth slack, feebly working to form a response, an explanation, anything as Jamie’s focus darted from Raoul to the bat to Oswald’s face and back again. He looked as sick as Oswald felt, standing pale in the shadow of the building and against black of his suit. New, Oswald recognised through the sludge of his thoughts. Fitting.

This was not how Oswald wanted to be reintroduced, not how he had wanted their friendship to resume, still wallowing in the lowest rungs of Falcone’s empire. He had wanted— had _planned_ – his wants and his plans falling wayside in the looks Jamie directed to him, the question and doubt in each one turning to an inevitable conclusion that made Oswald’s skin crawl.

Time seemed to move without him, leaving Oswald present yet vacant. He felt himself react and respond when addressed; he dropped the bat when Jamie told him to and answered when prompted by Butch, faintly aware of how much it hurt to pin a smile in place or how his voice threatened to crack. He needed to talk to Jamie. This was all he knew. He needed to make him understand.

He thought he had more time. Had assumed Jamie – no, wrong, his head said: James Gordon, GCPD. Detective, at least – he had thought that Jamie would need more time to work his way up the rungs of law enforcement, more than the six odd months it had been, before— before—

Jamie’s attention flickered about the scene, flighty, and Oswald took half a step forward when he realised that he was avoiding to even look at him.

“Ja—“ he started, only Jamie beat him to it, cut across Oswald to say: “See you round.”

The dismissal carried the velocity and weight of a bullet. There would have been no difference if Jamie had taken the gun at his hip and shot him.

Oswald snapped his mouth shut, teeth tight, left to watch in silence as Jamie left, the darkness of Mooney’s club swallowing him as he stepped through the door without so much as looking back.

Rain seeped into the fabric of Oswald’s sleeve and into the collar of his suit, cold and wet, and he came back into himself with a deep draw of air that sliced through his sinuses and burned through his lungs. His hands shook, the adrenaline that coursed through his body turning to a white sort of anger that rushed against his ears. He fisted his free hand, the blunt of his nails digging into his palm, the only thing grounding him as Zeb and Butch shared a scoff, content in their ignorance.

Oswald swallowed, felt his throat lengthen and constrict as the ringing in his ears settled. And he struck out and grabbed the bat with both hands, umbrella forgotten, the long handle slippery and wet from the rain, and he slammed it against the hunch of Raoul’s back, sending him flat against the concrete. The meaty thud of it rang up through his arm and rattled his teeth and Oswald swung up a second time, held it— held it before threw the bat down the alley where it rolled and skittered away, loud in the narrow space.

“Jesus Christ, Oswald,” Butch said, “take a chill pill.”

He sounded surprised for once, and the presence of it in his voice spurred Oswald’s anger further.

“Shut up,” he said, words drawn thin and tight, shaking in anger barely checked. “Shut up or I’ll pick up the bat, Gilzean. Don’t think I won’t.”

The rain had ceased and the silence in the alleyway was brittle, broken by Raoul who shifted on the ground, groaning.

Oswald cast him a look, lip curled, and he said: “Be grateful that’s all you got,” and then to Butch who looked at him, considering, “I’m done with this. Sort him out.”

There were new plans to lay.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Apologies for the terrible ending, but I was so done with this /o\\. [Tumblr](http://scramjets.tumblr.com).


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